From Subject to Non-Subject: Semiotic Analysis of the Process of Subject Collapse in Contemporary Iranian Realist Paintings in the Last Two Decades

Following the political and social developments in Iran in the mid-1370s, young artists created critical works in the new social and cultural demands. In such an area, the subject of the works moved towards more realism, and social realist painting was re-formed in Iranian contemporary art. These paintings show that the human subject has been indoctrinated with the opinion and rethinking of social beliefs and values, and by rejecting them, the subject is removed and collapses. Therefore, the author aim to analyze the process of the collapse of the subject in the realist paintings of Iran In the last two decade with benefit of the concept of “non-subject” in the discursive semiotics approach.  Research method is descriptive-analytical way and analysis of the works by using the discursive semiotics of Paris school. Based on this, the relationship between the form of expression and the form of content in the formation of “social non-subject” in Iran’s realistic paintings of the eighties and nineties, and the process of meaning production. Also, visual discourse in explaining social non-subject in paintings, have been analyzed. The findings indicate that in these paintings, the artist weakens the actional discourse through the elimination of the reel presence of the subject and visual semiotics strategies Such as norm-avoidance, subject’s automaticity, unaware subject, marginalized subject and subject’s threatened position. In this way the presence of discursive non-subject is highlighted and the subject has collapsed. Also, by introducing the subject into the perceptual-sensory discourse and putting him under emotional Intensity through visual arrangements such as darkness, wrinkles, wounds, etc., the artist achieves the modality discourse of anxiety and worry, which explains non-subject.